


Murder

by supernatasha



Series: Charred Metal and Hope [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Arya Changes Face, Death, F/M, Fan theories, Future Fic, Not Faceless Anymore, Rape/Non-con Elements, Series Spoilers, Spoilers, Triggers, dubcon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-03
Updated: 2013-05-03
Packaged: 2017-12-10 06:02:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/782645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/supernatasha/pseuds/supernatasha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is the third time that she knows not to use a blade. When the Kindly Man gives her a name, she does not strap her dagger to her body to dispose of him. He is not a man with a shortage of enemies and she does not question why he must die. Only that he must and she must do it without shedding a single drop of blood or the assistance of the Waif. The Kindly Man had been adamant about it. </p><p>Instead of a sword, she will kill him with her body. She has never done it before, but the thought of trying thrills her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murder

There is beauty in death.  
  
The first time she had killed a man, she had used poison. There was no shame in it- poison was a weapon as deadly as steel. The Waif could make whatever weapon was desired, fast and painless, slow and torturous, leaving one paralyzed, leaving blemishes and scars- undetectable and subtle.  
  
There is beauty in poison.   
  
The second time, she uses her blade. She watches the blood gather on the dusty streets, running in tiny rivers down his body, a tantalizing crimson color. She loves the scent of salt and iron, tiny specks soaking through her tunic. Later, she washes off her hands and the water turns pink, like a maiden blushing at a knight.  
  
There is beauty in blood.  
  
It is the third time that she knows not to use a blade. When the Kindly Man gives her a name, she does not strap her dagger to her body to dispose of him. He is a man she has heard of many times, a ship captain who regularly brings cargo from Westeros. He is not a man with a shortage of enemies and she does not question why he must die. Only that he must and she must do it without shedding a single drop of blood or the assistance of the Waif. The Kindly Man had been adamant about it.  
  
She mulls over how to kill him without making a mess or using poison. After days of following the captain through the city, she knows. He has a weakness: the beauty of women.   
  
Instead of a sword or poison, she will kill him with her body. She has never done it before, but the thought of trying thrills her. She picks a face from the Room, with large green eyes and golden hair, and becomes another being entirely. She keeps her own body, lithe and comely, tall but not unattractive.   
  
No One is beautiful for once in her life. She throws on a lovely dress the color of the sea found on a woman who had accepted the Many-Faced God’s gift in the fountain, and a string of emeralds that sparkle with every movement. She wears the face and the face gives her a name:  
  
Elysa.  
  
On the night the captain is fated to die, Elysa leaves the House of Black and White and heads for the pub across from the brothels. There is an electric charge in the air and she can smell the storm that should be upon Braavos soon, the wolf urging her to seek shelter. Clouds grumble and the winds moan. Elysa stares up at the sky.  
  
A moment later, the sky lights up fiercely: streaks of blue race through the black clouds, a complex root pattern even the Godswood could not compare with. The blue is so vivid that it reminds the memories in Elysa's body of another blue: of eyes. Blue eyes under black hair.   
  
Elysa looks away and quickens her pace. Ruining this dress before she got to the pub would be a shame. No One does not care for the dress, but Elysa does.  
  
When she gets there, it is crowded and hot and an eye-watering stink of bodies and ale.

 _Like the Peach. She shakes the memory out of her head. Elysa has never been to the Peach_.

Her eyes pick out the Captain, already drunk and holding a woman in his lap. He is singing out of tune and belligerently sloshing his mug of ale on the wooden benches.  
  
Elysa waits for the woman to get tired of the Captain's groping and steps in. She takes the Captain's arms and says in a surprisingly sweet voice, "Let's find us a room, good ser."   
  
He laughs raucously and repeats "Ser?" in amazement.  
  
No, he is no ser. But she has a job.  
  
He’s twice as heavy as her, easily three times her size. But her body is strong from carrying corpses up and down the steps of the temple, and she has reached a considerable height ( _she thinks she may be as tall as Robb, but she cannot remember how tall Robb was; sometimes, she cannot remember who Robb was at all_ ).

She guides him out of the pub. He points her in the direction of the inn he's staying at and Elysa tries to hold him upright as he stumbles in intoxication. They reach the inn just as a smattering of drizzle starts.   
  
Once they reach his room, she leaves him crumpled on the bed and lights the lanterns in the room. Even they do nothing to help the stuffy dampness in the room, so she opens the window. The comforting saltiness of the sea and the oncoming rain's earthiness soothes her instantly. Another spark of blue lightning ignites the sky and the roar of thunder that follows reverberates through her bones.  
  
"You gonna fuck me or are you here to enjoy the view?" the Captain slurs.  
  
 _I am here to kill you._  
  
The Kindly Man did not teach her to kill, but No One knows how to. Still, she does not move yet. Elysa does not know how to. Elysa had lived and died as a whore. She knows not the beauty of death. If a body is all she has, she must learn to use it- as a weapon, as a tool.  
  
So Elysa moves forward and helps him take off his breeches, his shirt soiled with vomit, smallclothes that desperately need a washing. Her mind turns in circles. Does she have the strength to snap his neck? Does she have the knowledge to strike in the one spot that would incapacitate him? How does one kill without spilling blood?  
  
The captain grows impatient and grabs Elysa roughly with both hands. He tears the cloth of her gown down the front and Elysa laments for the dress. The tatters of fabric flutter in the wind from the window. He shoves her down on the mattress with both hands roughly palming her breasts and for a moment Elysa- _Arya-_ struggles, suddenly panicked. She hadn’t expected this.

Before she can protest or leave, the captain is above her, suffocating, reeking of decay and filth. Arya prepares to throw him off but she can’t risk him hurting himself and drawing blood. It would be so easy to stick Needle into his stomach, past the layers of fat and into his gut. She can almost hear the _squick_ of his organs spilling out of him as she slits upward, skin giving away like butter. The desire for combat is so strong that Arya eases her sudden movements and inhales through her nose, keeping her bloodlust in check. She must wait it out, as much as the wolf snarls and fights inside to geld the monster above her.

He positions himself above her and-

A sharp pain goes through Arya and she gasps. She bites her lower lip as he thrusts further into her. Tears film Elysa’s green eyes, but she keeps herself from letting them overflow. She will not give this world the satisfaction of her tears from something as meager as physical hurt. So she locks her jaw, squeezes her eyes shut, and steels for the next wave of pain.

Even with her eyes closed, it doesn’t get better. His grunts mixed with vague grumblings resound in her ears and she has to fight to gag from his stench. Thankfully, a moment later, a loud pattering on the roof distracts her. It’s pouring outside, finally. A loud crackle of thunder shakes the inn, right down to the wooden bed. Arya focuses on the shaking of the thunder instead of the shaking of her body or the shaking of the emeralds around her neck. She thinks back to the blue lightning, of blue eyes. For just an instant, the figure above becomes tender and sculpted and she doesn’t hurt quite so bad. Her mind conjures up the scent of charred metal and hope- but only for a flash of the lightning. Then the captain above returns to the center of her mind and the fantasy is ruined.

The captain is too intoxicated to notice the obvious discomfort of the woman beneath him. He comes within minutes, something Arya cannot help but be grateful for. Her maidenhood had not meant much to her, but she did not prefer to stretch the moment. The captain collapses above her and groans.

She pushes him off and sits up, frowning against her will. She’s disheartened to the point of leaving the inn and returning later to finish the job.

But then he mutters, “Big job ahead. Leaving bright and early tomorrow for the service of the bastard Stark.”

_Bastard Stark._

Arya turns to him, sure she had heard wrong. “What did you say?”

The captain is sighing softly, almost asleep.

Arya slaps his face and he sputters awake. “What did you say?” she demands, her face inches from his at arm’s length. “About Stark?”

The man mumbles and Arya has to concentrate to hear him over the deafening, “King in the North.”

“Who is?” Arya grabs hold of the man’s tunic in her fist and shakes him. “ _Who is?_ ”

He blinks, narrows his eyes and stares at her. “You’re not the girl I came here with. Where’s the blonde? The pretty one?”

Arya leans closer to him and hisses, “Who is the King in the North?”

“Jon Snow. Jon Stark. Legitimized when he killed the Bolton bastard. They’re all bastards, all of them, running the kingdoms.”

“Jon is the King in the North?” Arya whispers, her heart swelling in her chest. She releases his tunic and asks, “What about Sansa? Sansa Stark, Eddard’s elder daughter?”

“Married. The Lannister imp. Or maybe she’s the one who disappeared?” he ponders out loud. His eyes wander around the room, glazed. Arya thinks he’s done talking, but then he continues, “The little one was married to the Bolton bastard, but when the Stark bastard got there, he said she weren’t the real one.”

“And the others? The younger brothers?”

The wind howled, throwing the shutters against the walls. The captain shrugged. “Who knows? Rumor says the littlest one’s a cannibal now, his wolf kills the men and the boy eats the hearts. They call him a warg, a mad flesh-eating warg. Bunch of beasts, I tell you.”

Arya holds back a growl. She can’t argue. She, at least, is a beast.

“The pretty daughter, was that the little one or the big one?” The captain asks.

“Sansa. The elder daughter,” Arya whispers under her breath, but he hears her anyway, even over the rain. Perhaps she didn’t whisper after all. Stark voices did not hide, they were not meant to.

“I saw her once, in Kings Landing. Went to swear fealty to another bastard- her betrothed,” the captain stumbles over the long word. “Red hair, big dresses, tits like the golden queen. There’s a cunt I wouldn’t mind forcing my cock in.”

Arya’s sorrow contorts. Anger flares in her, a fury she did not know she was capable of possessing. Her elegant and lovely sister, with lemon cakes in her hands, spoken of by this lowly creature. “Don’t you dare,” Arya warns in a dangerously low voice, her long limbs straddling the man. “You take that back.”

But the captain doesn’t notice her weight shifting- isn’t listening, rambling on, “Hands like a bird, tiny. You think she’s red down there, between her legs?” He asks and looks up at Arya just as her hands wrap around his throat.

“You take that back!” She shrieks madly. “ _Take it back!”_ The rain falls harder, thunder roaring overhead, her high-pitched battle cry lost in the cacophony.

A gargled choke escapes his lips and he flails his arms. Despite being smaller than him, Arya squeezes both legs around his waist and holds on, her thumbs find the sensitive point on his neck where his pulse throbs beneath her. Her tendons stick out sharp and pale against her hands, nails digging into the meaty flesh of the captains fat folds. She feels bones shifting beneath her hands, muscles crushing, and she relishes the feelings. Even without fangs or claws, she can constrict this man’s throat that had uttered such disgraceful words against her sister.

His lips are slowly losing blood, turning blue.

( _not the blue of eyes not the blue of the sea not the blue of lightning_

_the blue of death)_

His eyes open wide, giving him the appearance of being surprised. Even Arya is surprised when she feels him weakening under her; surprised her petite body had the strength and the will, as if she knew almost instinctively what to do to kill this man. He violently thrashes against her one last time, but she only presses down harder, wrists aching with the effort, knuckles locked in a tight grip, tiny droplets of rain spattering against her face as his life drains away.

She takes longer to choke him to death than he had taken to come when fucking her.

For long after, she cannot remove her fingers from his throat. She stares into his dead eyes, candles flickering and throwing shadows across his astonished violet face. There is no strength left in her to move and she sits atop his stiff cadaver. Finally, she leans away, hands raking his bare chest as they left his neck and hips settling back. The action is almost sensual.

She dismounts him and collects the tatters of Elysa’s dress on the floor. Almost curiously, Arya examines his body, ensuring there is no blood. It isn’t until she flips his heavy form over that she sees a small stain on the bedsheets, already dried and turning a dark maroon.

_But how? I strangled him._

It takes her a moment to realize it is not his blood, it is hers.

She does not regret or repent. She raises her chin and walks out of the inn into the storm, letting it wash her clean, congratulating herself on a job well done. His words do not leave her mind, and neither does his astounded face. He did not know she was an animal, he mistook her for human. She appreciates the chance to see him die slowly.

There is beauty in asphyxiation.

 

She is preparing for bed when the Waif finds her. Arya does not look up, only nods to acknowledge her presence.

“You have lost your innocence,” the Waif says with some mourning.

“No,” Arya retorts, finding the idea ridiculous, the pity in the Waif's voice even moreso. “I lost my innocence when they killed my father and my brother and my mother. Now, I have lost only whatever vestiges remained of being a proper lady. I do not care for the loss.”

The Waif smiles, “You do not think you are a lady?”

Arya smiles, baring her teeth. “I am a wolf.”

“Can a wolf not be a lady?”

“Only Sansa Stark can be a wolf and a lady. The rest of us can accept ourselves for what we are. I am not a lady, I am a wolf,” Arya repeats, but then her face falls.

The Waif is at her side in an instant, warm small hands on her shoulders, asking, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

“Sansa,” Arya murmurs. “My brothers.”

The girl is quiet before saying, “I offer consolation.”

“I need none,” she snaps.

“Are you okay?”

Knowing she was speaking of more than material pain, Arya shrugs and purposefully answers, “A soreness between my legs, perhaps. I’ll need moon tea.”

The Waif nods in understanding, hesitates and asks, “Are they alive?”

Arya knows inherently that she is asking about her sister. Arya holds back the sudden weight in her stomach, the lump that suddenly makes it difficult to talk. Clearing her throat, she says, “I don’t know. The captain didn’t know. Only that one of them is King in the North now.”

The Waif nods and leaves Arya alone to wallow.

Her pack, it was all unraveling. All she could do was hope more of them wouldn’t die, that she would meet them all with rosy cheeks and long hair and vengeance in their blood. Vengeance that would give them strength, the kind that had helped Arya complete her task today, to rip their enemies in half, to bring about life once more in Winterfell.

There is beauty in life.


End file.
